On April 21, 2017, I came to “All Roads Lead to Oberlin” after putting down my deposit for Oberlin a week earlier. I wanted to meet fellow incoming Obies, learn more about my home for the next four years, and convince my dad that, contrary to popular belief, going to Oberlin would not make me turn into an elitist hipster. After an early morning flight, my dad and I trudged onto campus. I was wide-eyed, excited, and eager to commence the next chapter of my life. We started the day with a speech from Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Tim Elgren. He talked about his hopes and dreams for our incoming class and what made Oberlin so unique. In the middle of his speech, at least a dozen Oberlin students barged throug...

$500. That is what I owed the school for my entire first year at Oberlin. $500 and two weeks to pay it; otherwise, I could not enroll for my second year. I called my mom immediately and got a reply I had heard for 18 years: “I don’t know where the money is going to come from, lovey.”
My parents made $15,000 dollars that year. Our furnace broke during that particularly bad upstate New York winter, and for two weeks my parents and little brother lived in a below-freezing house. The food stamps were nice though — at least they were eating.
That is how my family’s life is. We have always lived paycheck to paycheck with sometimes months in between. I knew when I left for college that they would be unable to...

To the Editors:
We are writing foremost to express our strong support and appreciation for [Oberlin Student Cooperative Association] and to reiterate our commitment to equity and fairness across all residential and dining options. These are not mutually exclusive positions, as we hope to clarify in the following points:
There has been much concern expressed over the reductions in aid for OSCA members ($1,000 for those who dine in OSCA and $2,000 for those who both dine and live in OSCA), but it is important to note that these reductions are part of the new model that aids to three meals per day as the baseline instead of the current model, which aids to two meals per day. As such, the net impact of these reducti...